


citizens of the east

by magnvseffect



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Almyra (Fire Emblem), Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, Gen, Heavily Headcanon-Based, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22592356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnvseffect/pseuds/magnvseffect
Summary: a compilation of stories about claude's background, almyra, and its people.
Relationships: Claude von Riegan & Original Character(s)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

It starts, as it often does, with an insult thrown to the wind. 

“...right does he have to ride a white wyvern? They’re for _royalty_.” 

Bahram’s old enough to tell he’s meant to hear it, even though it isn’t directed at him. When he turns, he spots the speaker : a teenage girl, probably no older than thirteen or fourteen, holding court among a cluster of young nobles. He recognizes some of them as Altun’s friends, which doesn’t surprise him. This is the kind of crowd his brother runs with, after all. 

For a moment, he thinks they might just keep walking. But then Esmyr freezes and whirls around, Ishtar slows to wait for her, and their little group's pace grinds to a halt. 

“Esmyr, leave it alone,” Ishtar says quietly right as Esmyr asks, loud enough for the whole courtyard to hear : “I think I didn’t hear that right, Rana. Care to repeat?” 

To her credit, the girl doesn’t flinch, and stares Esmyr down with as much confidence as she can muster. “I said, white wyverns are for _royals_ , not the likes of him.”

With that, she looks right at Bahram, who feels anger catch white-hot in the pit of his stomach. What right does _she_ have, to say he doesn’t deserve Setareh’s companionship? He takes a step forward with the determination of children with precious few things to love, but Esmyr beats him to it. 

“Do you hear yourself?” his cousin spits. “He’s a prince, same as Salim or Altun, and he’s to be treated the same as them.”

“Oh, I’m not saying he isn’t.” Rana tosses her hair over her shoulder. “I’m saying he _shouldn’t_ be.” 

Ishtar firmly clamps his hand over Bahram’s shoulders before he can move, and holds him in place despite his squirming. “I’m not letting both of you go at it, Ever-Bright help me, so _stay right here_.”

Bahram has half a mind to protest. It’s him Rana insulted, not Esmyr ⎯ should he not be the one to defend himself? But Ishtar’s knuckles grow white where they grip him, and just this once, he finds himself unwilling to go against his cousin.

Esmyr doesn’t show quite as much restraint. To the little prince, she looks like a warrior princess from Darian’s time as she strides across the courtyard and plants herself in front of Rana. Some of her friends back down without even realizing they did, and Bahram feels a somber sense of satisfaction at the sight. 

“Take it back.” Despite the apparent levity of her voice, there’s no mistaking her words as anything other than what they are : a threat.

Rana rolls her eyes at her. “Or what?” 

Esmyr crosses her arms, undeterred. “Or you’ll have to defend them with your fists, on the sand. Or do you only have a spine when there’s at least three other people around you?”

Anticipation ripples through the little crowd that surrounds them, and despite himself, Bahram shudders too. A challenge issued is no small matter, even among teenagers like them. If Rana rises to it, she’s pitching her chances against his cousin, fair and square ; if she declines, there will be no escaping the shame that comes with cowardice.

It really isn’t much of a choice at all.

“Fine! I hope you’re prepared to eat dirt, _princess_.”

Behind Bahram, Ishtar lets out a bone-deep sigh. 

\---

The royal palace’s training grounds are, by all accounts, a thing of beauty. Great colonnades of alabaster rise around them, delimiting shadowed archways for combatants to take breaks and built-in fountains to let them wash off the sweat and grime of their training. 

Bahram has never known them to be deserted, but they *are* scarcely populated today, with merely a few pairs going at each other with dull weapons or their naked hands. They’ve got no difficulty finding a space on the sand to claim for themselves. 

From then on, it’s all expedited surprisingly fast. Ishtar and one of Rana’s friends are chosen to hash out the rules of the fight together. They are straightforward : no weapons, no breaking bones, first one to surrender loses. 

And just like that, the two opponents are left to circle each other, the tension in the air palpable as they walk in slow steps, waiting for one to gather up the nerve to strike.

Rana is the first to make a move, lunging towards Esmyr with a strangled cry. Esmyr sidesteps her with a dancer’s grace and delivers a vicious jab to her shoulder as she passes her by, hoping to catch her off-balance. It must have hurt, if the rictus frozen on Rana’s face is anything to go by, but she doesn’t make a sound when she whirls back around and rushes back into the fray. 

Her punch catches Esmyr square in the jaw. Bahram gasps as his cousin reels, then grabs her adversary by the wrist and drags her with her into the sand, twisting her arm as they go down. 

They scramble there for a few moments that feel like an eternity, with neither party a clear winner. From what Bahram manages to see through the thick cloud of dust their struggling raises, they’ve given up on proper forms, resorting to clawing and shoving and pulling at anything they can reach, including their long braided hair. 

Eventually, though, Esmyr manages to pull herself to her feet, kicking Rana away when she makes a grab for her ankle. As the other girl makes the mistake to roll over to try and stand too, she pushes down on her shoulders and bears down on her with all her weight, holding firm despite Rana’s flailing.

“Let go of me!” Rana hisses. Some blood drips from her nose into the sand.

Instead of complying, Esmyr digs her heel into Rana’s back, lips pulled back into a snarl. “Apologize to him.” 

When she remains silent, Esmyr wrenches her head back by her hair in a sharp, twisted tug. Rana chokes on her own breath, fingers uselessly clawing at the dirt. “I’m sorry,” she eventually manages with a wheeze.

“Think I didn't hear the end of that. Try again.”

“I’m sorry... _shahzaden_ , Your Highness.” 

Finally, Esmyr lets up. Her opponent is left to draw herself to her feet alone. Only then do her friends dare step forward, ushering her out of the training ring with their tails between their legs. 

As soon as they're out of sight, Ishtar's grip on Bahram loosens. It takes less than a second for him to run straight at Esmyr, barreling into her arms and burying his face in her shirt. 

She lets him cling to her for a moment before prying him away and placing her hands on his cheeks with uncharacteristic gentleness. “Bahram,” she says, “don’t cry. See, I’m alright.” 

_You could have not been._ Thoughts run into one another in his mind, a continuous stream of panic. _You could have not been, and then, and then⎯_

People cannot get hurt because of him. Especially not Esmyr, bright and brave Esmyr, who everyone would love to death if she did not stubbornly keep defending him at every turn.

She must have sensed his distress somehow, because she throws her head back and laughs, bold as ever despite the purpling bruise blooming across her cheek. “Don’t you worry, okay? I’ll get stronger, and so will you. Then we can protect each other.”

Ishtar catches up to them, tutting as he reaches to ruffle Bahram's hair and scold Esmyr in the same breath. “You were imprudent. If anything serious had happened to either of you...”

“It didn’t, alright? Besides,” Esmyr sniffed, “I challenged her right and proper. She accepted, so it's on her head. I wouldn't cry and whine into my mama's skirts if she'd beaten me up instead.”

“I must’ve caused great misfortune and laughed at the gods personally in my previous life, for them to saddle me with the likes of you,” Ishtar grumbles. All the same, he pulls a small pot of unguent out of his pocket and forces Esmyr to sit down on one of the nearby benches, dabbing the cream onto her jaw and rubbing it in despite her whining. 

“Do you always carry that with you? What are you, a pharmacist?”

“Should I not, when I spend so much time around you?” 

Esmyr laughs, Ishtar makes an exasperated noise and drops the clay pot into her lap, and the familiarity of it warms Bahram down to his belly. 

Esmyr’s right ; he has plenty of room to grow. And when he’s old enough and strong enough, he’ll make a world in which they won’t _need_ to protect him anymore. 

He kicks his feet in midair and turns his face to the sunny sky, letting the sounds of his family around him lull him into serenity again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your feedback! i hope you enjoy this bit too, since it introduces two characters who've only been mentioned so far. i moved this chapter to the beginning of the fic to keep everything chronological, as claude's around seven in this one.


	2. until we meet again

Bahram is tying the last of his bags onto his wyvern’s saddle when Shamsa bursts into the enclosure, red-faced and breathless. Cassim is hot on her heels, his face colored with disbelief.

For a moment, all they can do is stare ⎯ at their best friend, at Setareh’s gleaming white form silhouetted against the night sky, at the dawning realization that _he’s leaving, he’s leaving for real_. 

Shamsa didn’t want to believe it at first, even when she caught him picking remedies out of her healer’s stock, or when she noticed the new lines, barely more than scratches, on his room’s maps. Now reality runs her through like a spear to the gut.

Bahram shifts on his feet. Moonlight catches in his hair when he turns to look at them with a sheepish smile. “...I guess I should’ve expected you two to catch on.”

Shamsa stomps over and jabs a finger at his chest. “What do you think you’re doing? You weren’t going to tell _anyone_?” 

Cassim slaps a hand over her mouth. “Think they didn’t hear you all the way over in the Throat,” he hisses into her ear. “You’re going to wake up all of Ectabana with that yelling.”

In retaliation, Shamsa steps on his foot, lightly enough not to actually hurt but enough for him to let go of her with a small yelp. When she speaks again, though, her voice comes out in a furious whisper. “Do your parents know about this?”

“Mama would never let me go if she knew,” Bahram retorts, face somber. “And Baba would never keep something like this from her.”

He’s got a point. Queen Shirin rarely speaks of her homeland - not to the likes of them, anyway -, but Shamsa remembers the bitterness of her voice from the times she did, few and far between. 

Then again, she supposes, the queen ran from her home for a myriad of reasons, not all of them as sweet as love. She can’t blame her for not wanting to dredge up such unpleasant memories.

“So you’re doing this behind their back?” Cassim whistles. “You do know they’re going to send people after you the moment everyone else notices you’re gone, right?”

Bahram pats his mount’s snout. “I’ll be faster on my own. By the time they catch up, I’ll have crossed the border already.” He blinks, then adds : “Assuming you two won’t rat me out right now.” 

“Bahram!” Cassim sounds legitimately offended. “We would never⎯ you know we couldn’t.” 

Despite his apparent resolve, Shamsa can sense the waver in his voice, the fear that echoes her own.

_If he goes without us, who will watch his back?_

Something must have shown on her face, for Bahram’s expression softens. “I know you don’t want me to go either, but I’ll be alright. I promise.”

He doesn’t need to elaborate. Since they were old enough to understand it, they’ve talked about his dream extensively, about the plans they made and the things they would do to bring his new dawn about. 

Shamsa feels silly. Bahram _has_ mentioned leaving for Fodlán before, meeting his maternal grandfather and kicking things into motion there. Still⎯ “Of course we don’t want you to go! What if...what if…” Her voice peters out by the end, shattering in her throat. 

“If I die, you’ll kill me. I know.”

“Glad to see you don’t disregard _everything_ I say.” She wants to slap that playful little smile off his face. She wants to see it bloom, again and again. 

Isn’t it funny, how so much can change in the span of a single day? Just this morning they were laughing together while Nader bossed them around the training rings. It breaks her heart to know that if Cassim hadn’t dragged her out of bed tonight, he could have left without them knowing at all. 

“Why not tell us?” Cassim’s voice sounds small. “What about Esmyr? And Ishtar?”

Bahram exhales, a frustrated sigh. “I didn’t want you to have to lie to my parents. As for my cousins...they’ll know what the next steps are when they find out I’ve gone. They’ll be just fine.” 

“What about us, then?” Shamsa tries to keep her despair out of her tone and fails. “What are we supposed to do?” 

“One of these days, I’ll call on you. Until then, just be careful. Please.” 

A thousand questions stumble into one another at the tip of her tongue. How long until he comes back to them? How will _he_ be safe, on his own in a strange land that has no more love for him than theirs? How⎯ 

Bahram doesn’t give her the time to ask. “It’s a long way to Derdriu ⎯ I should go before someone else shows up.”

“Yeah,” Cassim weakly agrees. “You should…”

Even so, they remain at a standstill, unwilling to break the fragile balance they’ve tried to keep for the last six years. 

She is so, so afraid, Shamsa realizes. Terrified that despite their best efforts, this will be the last time she ever sees him.

“May the sun forever remain at your back,” Bahram says eventually, breaking the silence. 

Shamsa's heart sinks. _This is it, then._ She balls her hands into fists in the folds of her nightshirt to keep them from trembling. 

Cassim steps forward, startling her. He clasps Bahram's shoulder and echoes him, gravely picking up the words of their people's farewell. “May the wind carry you swift and true.” 

Bahram rests his hand over Cassim's and looks to her then. The tilt of his head is a question of its own, waiting, hoping. 

Tears prickle at the corners of her eyes. She cannot keep him and she cannot let him go — but if she must, she will not see him off without a blessing.

On impulse, she unclasps one of her earrings and runs her fingers over its fine design, each sunray delicately carved into gold. 

“And may the Ever-Bright watch over you until I can once more.” She rests a palm against his cheek before gently hooking the jewel onto his ear and rearranging his hair over it. “Be safe, brother.” 

Wordlessly, Bahram pulls them both into a hug. Shamsa starts crying in earnest then, and by the sniffling she hears, so does Cassim. Bahram himself does not weep, only holds onto them like the world is ending, though in truth Shamsa knows it is only beginning. 

Everything happens too fast after that. They watch as Bahram hauls himself into the saddle, checking Setareh’s reins one last time. When the wyvern takes flight, Cassim shields her from the powerful beat of her wings, and when she looks again, both mount and rider have already risen into the sky, soaring towards the clouds. 

\--- 

Cassim holds her until Bahram and his wyvern are but a pinprick on the horizon, a shadow against the moon. She suspects he needs this as much as she does.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few months into the schoolyear, Claude reunites with an old friend.

“Damn.” Nader makes a show of weighing the stack of letters Claude just handed him. “Maybe that Academy of yours doesn’t make you work hard enough, if you’ve got the time to write a few novels between classes.”

Claude huffs. “Please just get them to Shamsa. She'll take it from there.” A pause. “How are the twins doing?”

“Parin’s settled all right, and I expect Simin will follow soon enough. These,” Nader pats his newly-acquired cargo, “will keep her calm a while longer, at least.”

“That’s good to hear.” 

Still, Claude’s heart gives a painful little pang at the thought of his little sisters, waiting without news in Ectabana. They aren’t yet old enough to deftly wield codes and ciphers the way his friends are, and so his letters must be few and far between, awaiting no response. What must they think of him? Perhaps he should have risked it and said goodbye. 

He shakes his head. Now is not the time to get melancholic, especially when it is a happy day. “I don’t see _her_ , by the way, and I doubt you crossed half the continent just to show up empty-handed.”

“Patience, little prince!” Nader’s hand lands on his shoulder, and as usual, it takes an embarrassing amount of bracing for Claude’s knees not to fold under the strength of it. That, at least, has not changed, whether he is seven or seventeen. “She was getting restless, so I let her go off on her own. She'll be back any minute.” 

“...Alright.” He does his best not to sound like a pouty child. If the twinkle in Nader's eyes is anything to go by, it doesn't really work. 

Instead of paying him any further mind, Claude tilts his face up and shields his eyes from the sun's glare, watching for his wyvern. 

_Any minute. Any minute._ His heart is drumming a steady beat behind his ribs. They've never been apart this long. He's counted : a year, two months and twenty-one days. He wonders if the others at the monastery would think him silly, to miss a mount so much, but _mount_ feels awfully restrictive, like she's nothing more than a work horse.

He's going to see his _friend_ again. That, better than anything else, rings true. 

Claude’s so lost in his own head that he almost misses the first glimpse of her.

At first, she is nothing more than a glimmer across the clear blue sky, blinding white light reflecting off the opalescent scales of her underbelly. She flies silently, the brush of her wings against the wind nothing more than a faint _whoosh_ , but he would know that sound anywhere. 

“Setareh!” he calls out, and her name swells in his chest like a melody. “Setareh, down here!” 

A sudden shadow falls across the sun. Claude raises his arms, and then he is swept up, safely clutched in his wyvern’s grasp. 

On instinct, his fingers reach for a familiar set of buckles. _Click, pull, click, pull._ Just like that, he is secure, already pulling himself up, up, and swingd into the saddle with the ease of someone who’s done it a thousand times.

He settles into the crease where her neck meets her wings, still windswept and giddy. Once he catches his breath, laughter bubbles up in his throat, uncontrollable ⎯ and Setareh laughs with him, a deep rumble rising from her core, until he’s clutching at her with tears in his eyes, his cheek resting against sun-warmed scales.

“I missed you, big girl,” he mumbles. She hums like she understands and flies them both higher, until all his woes feel like they’ve been left on the ground far below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know claude doesn't get his white wyvern (back) until post ts but consider : i do what i want

**Author's Note:**

> \- bahram/claude, cassim & shamsa are 16 in this one.  
> \- setareh is indeed claude's post-ts white wyvern. her name means _star_.  
> \- shamsa's class is the almyran equivalent of a holy knight, hence her carrying religious symbols such as her sun earrings.


End file.
